THE YOUNG FARMER'S MANUAL. 317 



work. "Where the subsoil is so free from stone that a ditching 

 machine can be used advantageously, the cost, per rod, is still 

 less. When a man can spade most of the earth, if he is a good 

 ditcher, and willing to do a faithful day's work, he can make good 

 wages by digging ditches thirty inches deep, and eight or ten 

 inches wide on the bottom, for fifteen cents per rod. If a laborer 

 is not able to do this, he may safely conclude that he is an inferior 

 laborer, and should be willing to work for wages in proportion to 

 the amount of work performed. I have had several hundred rods 

 of ditch dug, not less than thirty inches deep in the lowest place, 

 and eight inches wide on the bottom, for fifteen cents per rod, the 

 ditchers boarding themselves. And they earned, in some in 

 stances, at that price, from $1 to $1 75 per day. A faithful 

 laborer will shovel out a long piece in a day ; and when a man 

 can procure laborers who are willing to do an ordinary day's work 

 for one dollar, or one dollar twenty -five cents, it is the most econom 

 ical way to use the plow, as recommended in paragraph 402. 

 The habits of most ditchers are so detrimental to their health and 

 strength, that their powers of endurance fail when they attempt 

 to perform a day's work ; and therefore they increase the price 

 per rod in order to make fair wages by performing less labor. 

 For this reason ditches of a given depth, which a few years ago 

 cost fifteen cents per rod, will now cost twenty and twenty -five 

 cents per rod. But even at those prices, drains will often pay for 

 themselves in the first crop. 



KECAPITULATION. CONCLUDING REMARKS. 



440. Underdraining will pay, and pay well, too, and no intel 

 ligent farmer will attempt to deny it. If the young farmer feels 

 incompetent to lay out his drains most economically, it may save 

 him hundreds of dollars eventually to confer with some ex 

 perienced, successful farmer, who has had much experience in 

 draining. This confiding in the directions of some would-be engi 

 neer, who knows so much that his wisdom is a decided disad 

 vantage to him ; or laying out ditches, according to the notions 

 of some ditchers, who know more than experience ever taught 



